The Sirens Aren't Alright
by Civilized Lee
Summary: We throw stones into the water, ignorant of the ripples we create, convincing ourselves we are hopelessly alone, even when we're together. No matter how close she gets to another Siren, it can never give her the closure she wanted.
1. Passing in the Night

A pair of black boots step down a transport ship's staircase and onto a concrete landing pad. Their owner lets out a sigh, her breath condensing in the air in front of her face.

Pandora is no place for a Commandant of the Crimson Lance.

Steele can't believe Atlas has sent her to this dusty brown rock, all in the name of finding ancient alien artifacts hidden in a Vault which nobody is sure even exists. Atlas had gotten lucky with Promethea. Promethea, at least, had been well-known as being the former home of alien life. Pandora had the Eridians. The Eridians, who had apparently vanished centuries ago without so much as a trace of where they could have gone. What could have once been great Eridian cities were reduced to rubble, destroyed by Pandora's long winters and harsh summers.

The winter cycle will be ending soon, or so she's been told. Steele isn't sure what "soon" is. Pandora is known for having one of the longest day-night cycles of all planets civilized by humans.

Actually, "civilized" is a pretty generous term, she thinks as she scans the horizon.

The landing pad sits over a steep precipice overlooking a vast, _vast_ stretch of desert. Aside from a small shack made of sheet metal just about a hundred yards away from the foot of the cliff, there's no sign of any human life down below. As far as her eye can see, that's how far the almost featureless brown dust stretches. A few large boulders and sparse stactus plants dot the landscape, giving the eye some relief from the otherwise dead scenery.

"Ma'am? The Colonel has been awaiting your arrival."

Steele turns her head slightly to the right, looking out of the corner of her eye over her shoulder.

"Shall I show you to his office?"

She turns on her heel, examining the soldier before her. "Lead the way."

* * *

Lilith sighs as she places a hand to the small, round window in her cabin. She stares out past her fingers into space, at the swirling browns and blues of a nearby nebula.

There are two things she knows about being a Siren. It gives her amazing powers, and there will always be some people who will want to see her dead.

For that very reason, leaving Dionysus, her home of over two decades, was an easy decision to make. Saying goodbye to her parents, now that was tough, but she knew as long as she was still on that planet, they could never truly be safe.

Space seems much larger to her now that she's floating through the middle of it on a transport ship. The ship's lighting system simulates day and night cycles, but even so it's hard for her to tell how long it's been since she left. And that means she isn't sure how long it'll be until she reaches Pandora.

Pandora. Admittedly, Pandora seemed like a strange destination to her, but there wasn't much information on the internet to go off. Most of the sources of information on Sirens she found were just on their lore and history. There were a few hints, but none of them had any confirmed sources of where she could actually find one. One site mentioned a vaguely religious-sounding cult on the planet of Athenas, but that same cult supposedly controlled who could come to and leave the planet, so that option was out. Anything else seemed little more than a wild guess. Eventually, she had managed to work down to three options: Aquator, the Tethys system, and Pandora.

It was the latter that caught her attention, though she can't quite place why. Maybe it was just because it was the closest of the three. Maybe it was because it was one of the borderworlds: she has always liked the idea of setting out and exploring new planets. But on the other hand, she knows it would be a huge departure from her much more sheltered life on Dionysus. Pandora is notorious for being one of the more dangerous borderworlds, and she's even aware of the growing military conflicts between the Atlas and Dahl corporations.

Two more weeks is her best guess. Two more weeks until she is to start her new life out on the edge of the galaxy.

She drums her fingertips on the porthole, her stomach churning as she tries to ignore the thought that she's about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

* * *

"Where's the rest?"

"You're lookin' at it."

Steele looks from Colonel Lewis's brown eyes down to the lone folder resting on the desk between them. She scoffs. "You're not serious."

Colonel Lewis shrugs. "You already knew we don't have much to go on."

"But this? _This_?" she asks, holding the folder aloft and waving it. "This is _all_ the intelligence you've gathered on this Vault? How long have you been on this planet? What have you been doing this whole time?"

"Well, here's hoping you'll do better than I did."

"Me? Not us?"

"I've been reassigned. I thought Knoxx told you."

"Knoxx is rarely generous with details."

Lewis gives a nod of agreement. "Be that as it may... you'll be the one running operations on Pandora for the next few months. You're supposed to report to the General every week, but I'm not sure he even listens to 'em. Everything else you need to know, well..." He gestures to the thin folder in Steele's left hand.

"What does Atlas expect to find on this planet, anyway?"

The Colonel shrugs. "Beats the hell out of me. Four months on this planet and the best we came up with was finding a few old Eridian ruins. Nothing worth reporting, really. Doesn't help that Dahl keeps trying to strong-arm us out of here."

"Ah, yes, they have mining operations on this planet, no?"

"Yeah, they're lookin' for eridium or idirium or some shit like that. I've heard that they're thinking of pulling out, though. Doesn't sound like they're finding much of what they're looking for either."

Steele shakes her head and looks out the window to her left. More dust. More brown landscape. "We must have really pissed somebody off to get stuck on this planet, hmm?"

"No kiddin'. Truth be told," Lewis says, picking up his briefcase, "I think I'd feel better being here as one of the convicts Dahl uses in their mines. At least then I'd _know_ my being here was supposed to be punishment."

Steele sighs as she surveys the horizon.

"Well. The less time I spend here the better. Hope you have better luck here than I did. Get out there and find something that'll set us ahead a hundred years, huh?"

Steele glances over her shoulder and gives Lewis half a grin. "Let's hope."

* * *

"So what brings somebody like you to a planet like this?"

Lilith glances up from her drink as she hears the thickly-accented voice.

"Ahaha! Yes, you, I'm talking to you!"

Lilith offers the man half a smile as their eyes meet. "Chasing a dream."

The man's brown eyes seem to light up at her answer. "Ahh, I see now."

She raises an eyebrow. Does he?

"You're after the legendary Vault, aren't you?"

Lilith decides not to respond, hoping that acting the mysterious type will be her best play.

"There are not many people that still believe it's real," he says, signaling towards the barkeeper to bring him a drink and refill Lilith's. "That it's just a child's story... But I suppose you already know that."

Lilith shrugs as the bartender places two glasses on the table in front of them.

"But you don't expect to find the Vault without a weapon, do you?"

"Who said I don't have a weapon?"

"Well, if you've got one, you're doing a great job of hiding it."

Lilith picks up her glass and takes a drink, studying the mustached man in front of her, the rings on his hands. A glint in his smile catches her eye, and she notices one of his teeth is plated in gold.

"Hmm, now what weapon do you prefer?" he wonders aloud, rubbing his chin with his hand. "Not a shotgun, that's too messy for you... do you like the deadly precision of a sniper rifle? No... no, you don't strike me as the patient type. You need something that can keep up with your quick pace, don't you? Maybe a nice combat rifle? Or are those too clunky for you? Hmm... ah! I've got just the thing!"

Lilith watches as the man leans over to his side and activates a storage deck. A crimson-colored gun with glowing red lights appears on top of it, and the man sets it down on the table between them.

"A good submachine gun is the weapon for you: lightweight, high rate of fire, easy to reload. Complete with a fire accessory, so you can roast anything that gets in your way!" The man chuckles. "And it's Hyperion-made, so you can fire with deadly accuracy. I think you'll grow to love Hyperion tech."

Lilith runs her fingertips along the stock and the barrel before looking up at the man. "How much?"

"Four hundred. But I'll throw in this Dahl-made storage deck for free. You'll need somewhere to keep that thing, won't you?"

Lilith sighs. Four hundred dollars isn't cheap for her. On the other hand, she would feel a lot safer with a weapon like the one in front of her. And she's sure that she could earn some money with that on her hip.

"So. Do we have a deal?"

Lilith nonchalantly rolls the left sleeve on her jacket up. The man's smile falters briefly as he notices her tattoos. "What do you know about Sirens?" she asks, studying his face, looking for an indication of fear or intimidation.

The man clears his throat, but he keeps a straight face. "A Siren, hmm? I can't say that I know much. Other than the legends."

"Legends?"

"Oh, surely you've heard of the Eridians, no? The mysterious alien race that once inhabited Pandora?"

Lilith rests her cheek on her palm, signaling with her other hand for him to continue.

"The Eridians were a powerful, advanced race. Some say they made weapons that could convert pure energy into deadly lightning. But nobody knows what happened to them. Their ruins scatter this whole planet. Now, tell me, what do you think could have made a race as advanced as the Eridians vanish just like that?"

She shrugs.

"No one can say for sure, of course, but some legends say that something more powerful than them wiped them out. Or someone. To be more specific, six someones."

"Sirens?"

"So the legend goes," he says before taking a drink from his glass. "They say that centuries ago, the Six Sirens all fought side-by-side, exploring the universe and hunting down treasure on dangerous new worlds. They say that they were all drawn to this planet. That they were drawn by the power the Eridians wielded. The power of the Gods. They say that those Sirens were the reason the Eridians vanished. Nobody seems to be sure what they did to them, though. Some believe they killed the Eridians, others say they banished them to an alternate dimension."

Lilith slowly nods. "That's interesting and all, but what does it have to do with me?"

The man sighs and takes another slow drink. "Don't you think it's odd that you, another Siren, were drawn to this planet, just like the Six Sisters before you?"

"That's assuming that story you just told was true."

The man smiles. The story was a complete lie, of course. The man is a master of spinning lies and tales. "As I said, there isn't much that could cause a race of highly advanced beings like the Eridians to vanish without a trace. And I've always firmly believed that there's a bit of truth behind every legend. Maybe there's a good reason you were drawn to this planet, Miss...?"

"Lilith," she says after a beat.

"Marcus," he introduces himself with a smile.

Lilith sighs, looking back down at the Hyperion SMG between them as she takes a drink.

"I'll tell you what," he says, glancing down at his fingernails. "I'll even give you a discount. Two hundred for the gun and the storage deck."

"What's the catch?"

"No catch. I've just got a feeling about you. I think you and I can make a lot of money together. And I don't think it would hurt you to have someone on your side on a planet like this, especially somebody with my resources."

Lilith finishes her drink and bites her bottom lip as she considers the offer. "You think so, huh?"

"Trust me. I don't get a good feeling about most mercs I meet." And about that much, Marcus was being honest.

She traces a fingertip along the barrel and glances up at him. "And you'll help me find anything you can on Sirens?"

"Any interest of my business partner's is an interest of mine," he replies, showing off his gold tooth with another smile. "What do you say, Vault Hunter?"

After a second's hesitation, Lilith reaches into her jacket pocket and places two $100 bills on the table.

* * *

"Ma'am?"

Steele glances up from the map laid out on her table to see a soldier named Delvin Hoffman standing in the doorway to her office.

"We've been receiving reports of heightened activity outside of Fyrestone," he explains.

Lieutenant Hoffman had been assigned by Atlas to be Steele's second-in-command. He told her he had grown up on Pandora before joining Atlas's military, so the choice seemed a logical one. He was somebody who knew the planet, knew the wildlife. Atlas made it clear that he was somebody to be trusted.

"Fyrestone," she repeats.

"It's far off to the west," he explains, walking up to the table. He extends a finger and points to a small dot on the left side of the map. "Right here."

"And why is this worth reporting?"

"One of our scouts said a group of mercenaries got their hands on an Eridian artifact."

"_What_." Steele's voice is flat and icy.

"We had tracked it to a bandit leader running one of the mines. Went by the name of Sledge. We were working on putting together a team to get in there and get it, but then that group of mercs came in before we could."

Steele shuts her eyes and exhales heavily. "What's their story?"

"Just a group of four guns for hire that have been causing a disturbance out there for the past few days. I didn't think much of it until they grabbed that artifact. Last report I heard had them heading east into the Dahl Headlands."

"Keep an eye on them," Steele orders.

"I've got my best spy out tracking them. We'll know their every move."

* * *

Lilith lies in her bed in New Haven, fingers interlocked, hands folded under her head. She looks out the window, gazing up at the stars in the night sky. Somewhere out there in the heavens is her home planet. Her entire world as a child was reduced to nothing more than a speck in the night sky. She smiles to herself. It's funny how her perceptions as a child seem so much more insignificant now.

"Having trouble sleeping?"

Lilith nearly jumps out of bed and grabs her sub-machine gun resting on the nightstand before realizing who it was that spoke.

"I'm sorry, friend. I didn't mean to startle you."

Lilith slowly lies back down, trying to figure out why the Guardian Angel is contacting her directly.

"Can you hear me?"

"Uh..." Lilith says slowly. "Yeah... yeah, I can hear you."

"Sorry again for scaring you."

"No, it's just... you've never... talked to me before. I mean, like, directly."

"I've never had the opportunity before now."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's not important right now. I just want to tell you: I know why you're on Pandora."

"Isn't that kind of obvious in the title 'Vault Hunter'?"

"That's not what I mean, and you know it. You're here looking for a Siren."

"You... know that?"

"I know a lot of things, Lilith."

The redhead fidgets nervously in her bed. The Guardian Angel has never used her name before.

"I want to let you know: your search is not in vain."

Lilith's pupils dilate as the words flow into her ear. "You mean—"

"There is another Siren on Pandora. And you're very close to finding her."

"Wh- I..."

"I know you must have a lot of questions, but know that I won't be able to answer them all."

Lilith doesn't bother to ask why. The Guardian Angel hasn't been contacting her for terribly long, but she knows that the computer is often selective in what it tells her. "Well... when will I meet her?"

"Soon. Within a few weeks, in fact, if everything goes as I predict."

"Well... what's her name? What's her power?"

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Can't tell me that, right..."

"Right."

"Is it because you don't know, or you're just programmed not to let me know certain things?"

The projection of the Guardian Angel's face looks to the side uncomfortably.

"Right, can't tell me that either."

The Guardian Angel seems to look at Lilith apologetically.

"...does she know about me?" Lilith asks.

"Yes and no."

"...what does that mean?"

"She knows you're on this planet, but she doesn't know that you're a Siren. Not yet."

"Oh."

"She'll learn-"

"Could you tell her?" Lilith asks, her eyes sparkling.

"... I'm sorry?"

"Could you tell her about me? You know, that... that I'm a Siren and that I'm looking for her? You know, I mean... I was kind of feeling like this was all a waste of time until you told me there's another one here just now... maybe it would do the same for her."

Lilith watches as the projection of the young woman's face stares ahead intensely. She doesn't seem to be looking at Lilith, but rather past her, as if in deep thought. "I'm... I'm really not allowed to contact others..."

"Right," Lilith says, a tone of defeat in her voice. "Forget I brought it up. Delete it in your logs, or whatever."

Lilith heaves a sigh, drowning out the sound of Angel doing the same.

The projection of the Guardian Angel's face looks downward, and she bites her bottom lip.

"Lilith?"

"Yeah?"

"I can make an exception for you."

The sparkle in Lilith's eyes comes back as she sits up in her bed. "Really?"

"I think these are... extenuating circumstances."

Lilith lets out a short laugh and runs her right hand through her hair. "I... I don't know what to say... thank you, um..."

"You can call me Angel," she says. The projection of her face smiles at Lilith, and Lilith feels herself grinning back.

"Thank you, Angel."

"I have to go now. I'll contact her as soon as I can, but I want you to know that I'm always watching, Lilith."

"Heh... yeah, I kind of figured you were already."

Angel chuckles. "Good night, Lilith. We'll speak again soon."

Lilith sighs and lies on her right side, wondering when she'll get another chance to talk to Angel one-on-one.

* * *

Steele lies awake in her barracks at night, a sudden cold draft interrupting her sleep. Not long after she wakes up, a woman's voice speaks up, seemingly right in her ear.

"Hello, Helga."

Steele, nearly on the verge of falling back to sleep, bolts upright in her bed, grabbing the Atlas-manufactured revolver on her nightstand.

"There's no need to be alarmed."

"...where are you? _Who_ are you?"

Steele squints, trying to shield her eyes as a hologram projects in front of her from her ECHO device. A young, dark-haired woman with piercing blue eyes and a kind smile appears in front of her.

"This is me," the voice says, though the lips on the image of the woman don't move.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"You can think of me as a guardian angel."

Steele doesn't respond.

"We've spoken before. Or at least, I've spoken to you before. Do you remember?"

Steele falls silent. She remembers now. It wasn't long after she got to this planet. She was on a convoy trekking through the desert when they were ambushed by a group of bandits. The bandits, of course, weren't the real danger: that was the collection of adult craw worms that attacked while their guard was down. They started dispatching the creatures, but when the ground started shaking a loud rumbling sound started to drown out everything else, Steele had heard a voice in her head with stunning clarity, and it told her one thing: "_Get out of there_."

Twelve people were on that convoy mission, and only five came out of it alive. One soldier stayed behind while the five who were still alive fled from the gigantic craw worm that was burrowing its way out of the sand. Whether it was a gallant act of self-sacrifice, or just the fact that he was frozen in terror, Steele still isn't sure, but she knows that the only reason they were able to get away safely is because that soldier distracted the great beast.

The same voice that told her to flee had guided her, and thus the rest of the group, back to civilization and safety. At the time, she was so full of adrenaline that she didn't even notice the voice telling her where to go wasn't her own.

"You remember now," the voice says, keenly aware of Steele's thoughtful silence.

"That day in the desert... that was you. You... you saved me."

"Like I told you: think of me as a guardian angel."

"What do you want from me?"

"I don't want anything from you. I only wish to warn you."

Steele purses her lips together and exhales shortly. "Warn me about what?"

"I don't have much time, so please listen: the Vault is not what Atlas believes it to be. It doesn't hold advanced weapons, or alien technology. I can't tell you what _is_ inside, but I have to let you know: you _cannot_ be there when it is opened."

"Is that so? And just why not?"

"You will be killed."

Steele raises an eyebrow, then scoffs. "I don't think you know who you're talking to."

"I know exactly what you are, Helga. I've been watching you the entire time you've been on this planet. I know what you're capable of. I've seen you use your powers. So believe me when I say this: if you are present when the Vault is opened, _you will not survive_."

"If you're trying to scare me, it won't work. Who do you work for, anyway? Are you with Dahl?"

"No. And as far as you should be concerned, I'm not _with_ anybody. In fact, I'm not technically allowed to speak with you. I'm risking a great deal just telling you this much."

"And why would you risk all this for a stranger?"

"Let's just say we have quite a bit in common."

Steele shakes her head, but before she can respond, the voice interrupts her.

"I have to go. I'll try to talk to you again later, but please, trust what I told you is the truth."

The young woman's face fades from Steele's vision, and Helga rubs her forehead as she lies back down and stares up at the ceiling. She wouldn't be able to fall back asleep before her alarm went off two hours later.

* * *

"Hey."

Mordecai snaps his fingers in front of Lilith's face a few times, and she slowly looks over at him. "Huh?"

"You were staring off for like five minutes there. What's goin' on with you?"

"Nothing," Lilith replies casually. "Just thinking, I guess."

"About what?"

Lilith smirks. She was thinking about how despite spending the last five weeks in close company with the three men beside her, the person she considers her closest friend on this planet isn't a person at all, but a voice that speaks with her most nights, an unseen eye that seems to track her every movement, a giver of advice when she wants it, and an attentive ear when she needs it.

"About how Roland burned the skag again," she says after a beat.

"_I'm_ not the one who thought shooting the whole set-up with a fire shotgun would speed things along," he says in defense.

"Good things come to those who _wait_, Brick," Lilith says, looking at the incendiary shotgun by the Berzerker's side.

"I punch waiting."

Lilith chuckles. Angel is a good friend to her, but that isn't to say she hasn't grown fond of her fellow Vault Hunters in her own way either.

"So what's our plan for tomorrow?" Mordecai asks, chewing a particularly rough chunk of skag meat.

"Pierce wanted us to check out that inactive bounty board in the Rust Commons. Why don't you and I handle that one, Mordy?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Brick and Lilith, you two can go check out that cave on the other side of the trash heap."

"The one with all those midgets?" Lilith asks, trying to work out a piece of meat stuck between her teeth with her tongue.

"Yeah. Tannis mentioned something about crystals that she wanted us to check out too, so keep an eye out for those."

"Sounds simple enough," Brick says with a nod.

"Try not to punch anything that doesn't need punching, big guy," Mordecai says.

Brick laughs. "I've never met a problem that couldn't be solved by punching."

Lilith smirks and shakes her head. "I think I'm gonna head to bed now. Brick, meet me by the Catch-a-Ride tomorrow when you're ready to go."

Brick nods as he chews on a bite of skag meat. Crass as he could be sometimes, Lilith thinks, at least he has the manners not to talk when his mouth is full.

She heads back to her room in New Haven's run-down apartment complex and wonders if Angel will be able to contact her tonight.

* * *

"Hello again, Helga."

Steele's only visible reaction to the Guardian Angel's disembodied voice speaking in her ear is the flickering of her eyes away from the map she's studying.

"There's another Siren on Pandora."

This catches Steele's attention. She nearly drops the glass in her hand. "Another Siren? You're sure of this?"

"Positive. And you're going to meet her very soon."

Steele's mind races. Another Siren? She had given up the possibility of ever meeting another of her kind years ago, and now there's one on this hellhole of a planet?

"Well, 'meet' might be a generous way of putting it," Angel continues. "But you'll see her, with your own eyes. You'll feel her presence."

"How... how do you know this?"

"A gift. A gift of foresight. Of knowledge."

Steele still isn't sure how an AI could see into the future, so she's careful to take what the Angel tells her with a grain of salt. But still, the thought of being so close to another Siren... her mind boggles at the possibilities.

"She's grown quite powerful lately, but don't let this worry you. She's looking for you, too. She wants to meet you."

Steele slowly nods as she swirls the vodka in the glass she holds on to by her fingertips.

"I'm sure you don't need me to tell you the potential of two Sirens working in tandem."

"What does she know of me?"

"What little I told her. That you're a Siren, and that you know about her."

Steele lifts her glass to her lips and lets the liquid wash past her teeth and down her throat. "So almost nothing."

"You'll understand that sharing too much knowledge with either of you could have serious repercussions. I'm already interfering too much just by telling you of each other's presence."

"Sometimes discretion is necessary," Steele says, more thinking aloud than responding to Angel.

"I should go now. I trust you'll come up with something for meeting this other Siren. And remember what I told you: you must not be present when the Vault is opened."

Steele doesn't respond. As much as she's willing to believe the Guardian Angel about the other Siren, she still firmly believes the Guardian Angel isn't being entirely forthright about the Vault. What could possibly be inside that would be a danger to someone as powerful and skilfully trained as herself?

"Oh, and there's one more thing."

"What is it?"

"Do not trust Lieutenant Hoffman." The projection of Angel's face is flat and serious.

Steele smirks and takes a slow drink from her glass. "I never did."

* * *

"Do you think she might want to join me?"

Lilith's conversations with Angel have become almost a nightly ritual that she's grown to look forward to. Angel seems to understand a lot about Sirens, but Lilith doesn't find it peculiar: a computer with Angel's power would undoubtedly be able to discover a lot of information on Sirens. She _must_ be able to, since she was able to find the other Siren in the first place.

"I told her about you," Angel replies casually. "She seems... interested, to say the least."

It dimly occurs to Lilith how much she must sound like a teenage girl talking about her crush, but she doesn't care, because she realizes how lucky she is just to have a chance to talk to another Siren. "You told her about me?"

"As much as I could, anyway."

"Meaning...?"

"That there's another Siren on this planet, and that you came here looking for her."

"Does she believe you?"

"She has no reason not to. It wasn't the first time I spoke to her."

"It wasn't?"

"No. I spoke to her twice before. The first time, she didn't even realize I was doing anything at all. That is... how I'm supposed to operate."

Lilith nods. "Is that why you haven't contacted any of the others directly? Because when I told them about you talking to me, they... didn't seem to believe me. Like they couldn't imagine you doing that."

The projection of Angel's face gives just the hint of a smile. "Let's just say you're special."

* * *

Steele drums her fingertips on the control console in front of her, looking through the window at the round room beneath her.

Something doesn't seem right.

She looks down at her left arm, and notes that the light beneath her tattoos is swirling, the darker shades of blue mixing and swirling with lighter, milkier tones.

A strange feeling washes over her, rippling from the back of her neck and down through the rest of her body.

"Ma'am? Is everything okay?"

Steele glances over her shoulder at Hoffman and gives him a contemptuous look. "I get the feeling that somebody has kept very important information from me."

Hoffman fidgets nervously under Steele's icy glare. "I- I just send along what I'm told, Ma'am, I-"

Steele holds her right hand up and focuses back on the room below. Hoffman falls silent.

Red lights around the room start flashing, and a loud siren sounds off. The shipping crate lifts up.

The large man stands in between the former Atlas soldier and the masked man with the goatee. Steele frowns for a moment. Weren't there supposed to be four of them?

The group steps forward, almost in unison.

"DEATH TO ALL WHO OPPOSE US!"

The mountain of a man springs into action as the doors beneath the room Steele is in open up. As he moves, he reveals the fourth member of their party, previously hidden behind his massive frame. She stares up at Steele, and Steele stares down at her in shock.

The Guardian Angel told her she would see the Siren with her own eyes in due time, but this wasn't quite what Steele had in mind.

McCloud and his guards are as good as dead, she realizes. With any luck, they might be able to take down some of the others, but they don't stand a chance against the Siren in one-on-one combat.

Steele turns on her heel and walks out as she hears the gunfire starting. "You," she says, pointing to Hoffman. "With me. Now. And bring your scout with you."

* * *

"Please tell me you all saw that!"

"What, the cannon he was using? It's interesting technology, but the projectile's too slow to be a viable weapon," Roland says. "Marcus might pay good money for it, though."

"No, not- not the guy, the chick! The Siren?"

Roland and Brick exchange glances, then look at Lilith curiously. "Who?" they both ask in unison.

"You seriously didn't see her? Up in that little room up there?" she asks, pointing up at the room in question.

"Yeah, Steele. I saw her," Mordecai says slowly.

"Yes! Thank you! See? You see?"

"Steele's a Siren?" Brick wonders aloud.

"You _do_ realize she's the one that's been trying to kill us this whole time, right?" the Hunter asks Lilith.

"Well- okay, sure, but she's a _Siren_!" she says, gushing with enthusiasm.

"How does that change the fact that she's been trying to kill us, exactly?"

Lilith shakes her head. "Why is this so hard for you guys to understand? A friggin' computer knows why I'm so excited to find another Siren, so what's so hard about it for you chuckleheads?"

"The Angel?" Roland asks curiously. "You mean the Guardian Angel knows why you came here?"

"Yeah," Lilith says in a tone of voice that suggests that bit of information is the most obvious thing in the world. "And unlike you guys, she was genuinely excited for me. But no, you know what, it's fine."

"Well, we just-"

"Forget I even brought it up. Let's just get on with it and find Tannis."

Lilith heads to the entrance to the Crimson Fastness. The three men exchange glances with each other. Roland shrugs, and they all follow her through the blast door.

She's not about to let the rest of them slow her down. Not when she's so close to getting to Steele.

* * *

Steele is furious.

Not at the fact that Master McCloud is dead – he was a boastful asshole, and she wouldn't be mourning his loss.

Steele is furious because not one incompetent fool in the entire Crimson Lance division thought it was necessary to tell her that one of the mercenaries that was interfering with their mission was a _Siren_.

Steele the Siren wishes she didn't have to find out about the other one from a disembodied voice and a face that doesn't move its lips when she talks.

Steele the Commandant of the Crimson Lance is the one who has to do the reprimanding.

"You saw her," she growls at a young soldier, no older than 21. "You saw her with your _own eyes_, and YOU DIDN'T REPORT THIS TO ME?"

The spy looks nervously back at Steele and wrings her hands. "I- I had special orders to report directly to the General. He said it was need-to-know information."

Steele extends her left arm and telekinetically picks up a decorative plant on the windowsill, then violently whips her arm to the left, sending the potted plant hurtling into the wall. The pot shatters on impact, sending clay shards falling to the ground. "YOU DIDN'T THINK I NEEDED TO KNOW THIS?"

The soldier recoils nervously. "The General didn't seem to think so-"

"Damn the General!" Steele shouts, slamming her fist on the desk.

"I was just following orders-"

Steele stares into the young soldier's eyes. "You weren't following _my_ orders."

The young woman nervously breaks eye contact.

"Go."

"Ma'am?" she asks.

"Get out of my office. I'll decide how to reprimand you later. Unless you'd rather I do it while I'm still seething."

The spy salutes and quickly leaves the room, shutting the door behind her.

Steele slowly turns to Hoffman, who was standing in the corner, watching the whole exchange unfold.

"Special orders from the General. Can you believe this? Can you believe Atlas would have my own subordinates working against me behind my back?"

"I don't understand it either, Ma'am," he says, shaking his head.

Steele nods slowly, then turns to face the window, her back to Hoffman. "What I don't understand," she starts, slowly, "is _why_."

"I'm sorry?"

"Why wouldn't they want me to know _exactly_ what it is I'm dealing with? Why would they go to such great lengths to make sure I didn't know I was dealing with another Siren this whole time?"

Hoffman sighs and shakes his head. "No clue. Maybe they thought that knowing you were going up against a Siren might... cloud your judgment."

Steele lets out a humorless laugh. "Cloud my judgment? Do you realize how many deaths could have been avoided if I knew they had a Siren? No, that doesn't add up..."

Hoffman glances nervously to his left side. He doesn't like how he can't see Steele's face.

"It's funny... it's almost as if someone were trying to set me up for failure."

"...Ma'am?"

"Sergeant Kaplan said she received special orders from the General. Curious, isn't it? Considering only commissioned officers have contact with Atlas."

She turns on her heel and considers Hoffman before speaking again.

"Knoxx mentioned that you went through the Lance Officer Training Academy when he assigned you to be my second-in-command..."

He eyes her nervously as she paces around the room.

"Now that I think about it," she continues slowly, "I wasn't even the one who selected Kaplan for that reconnaissance mission." Turning to face him, she adds, "That was you."

"She was the best for the job. If you're insinuating-"

Steele holds up an ECHO recorder and hits the play button. Surprised, Hoffman falls silent.

A gruff voice speaks first on the recording. "_We've got more reports of another angel out there._"

A second voice, unmistakeably that of Hoffman. "_I'll look into it_."

"_Same restrictions apply. This one sounds dangerous, so whoever you get on that job, make sure they're careful_."

"_I'll get the best we've got_."

"_Good. I'll want them to report back personally to me, understood? I need to know exactly what we're dealing with so I can decide if we should try and take her alive or just kill her._"

"_Understood_-"

Steele stops the recording and casts an icy stare at him.

"You-" he starts, but she interrupts him.

"The two of you have been scheming against me since I was sent here."

"That's a hell of an accusation-"

"You think I'm that stupid? I've been watching you for weeks now," she says through gritted teeth. "How did you think this would work? You get rid of me and he would be so grateful that he promotes you?"

"Knoxx has wanted you out for a while," Hoffman says, dropping his facade of innocence. "You've got a lot of ambition, and even more power, and that's never a good mix."

"You have no idea what you're doing," she growls, placing her hands flat on the desk and staring him down.

"The closer you've gotten to this damn Vault, the more reckless you've become. You don't think Knoxx noticed that? You don't think he saw this as the perfect opportunity to disgrace you? To send you on a wild goose chase for a treasure that doesn't exist?"

Steele smirks. The Vault is real, that much she knows. Not that she could say she found it out by a disembodied voice telling her.

"He'll find a way to get rid of you," Hoffman says, heading towards the door. With a hand on the knob, he looks over his shoulder at her. "Provided this planet doesn't do it for him."

Hoffman turns away from Steele, twists the knob, and pulls the door open.

He stops in his tracks.

Steele stands in front of him, a revolver in her hand aimed squarely at his heart.

Before he can look back over his shoulder at where she was standing just a second earlier, before he can even utter out "_how?_", she pulls the trigger.

Lieutenant Hoffman falls back. As he does, he thinks he can see her still standing behind the desk, but his peripheral vision quickly starts fading.

As the color leaks from his vision, the last thing he sees is Steele looking down at him as she walks past.

The Vault Hunters would be setting out for the Vault in a few hours.

Steele figures none of the rest of the Lance will know of Atlas's plans to oust her from power. She can use that to her advantage.

She ECHOs a few of her top soldiers and tells them to muster some troops. The Eridians left a lot of guards on the path to the Vault.

With any luck, she could get there before the Vault Hunters do. Then after she opens the Vault, she can kill the guards and wait for the Vault Hunters to show up. The three men were useless to her, but the Siren... maybe the Siren would see things her way. She'd give her a chance to join her. And maybe the first thing they could do would be to take revenge on Atlas. If the corporation thought dealing with one Siren required that much subterfuge, they wouldn't stand a chance against a second one.

Steele opens the window and extends her hand towards Hoffman. His body starts levitating. She quickly checks outside the window, and upon seeing the coast is clear, opens it and sends his body out and down a steep cliff face. The rakk and the skags would take care of the rest.

The bloodstain on the floor... well, there is just no time for that.

Steele takes her ECHO communicator out of her ear, drops it on the ground, and crushes it underneath the heel of her boot.

She exits the room, closing and locking the door behind her. No one would even find the bloodstain until it was much too late.

She smirks to herself and heads outside. As if on cue, a transport vehicle rolls up, and a bearded soldier opens the passenger door for her.

"Whatever's in that Vault," the driver says as he guides the vehicle forward, "it's gonna make Atlas a superpower."

Steele stares out the window silently. Angry as she is on the inside, she remains outwardly calm. Atlas isn't exactly high on her list of priorities.

* * *

Angel stares in horror as the four monitors in front of her show Steele getting pierced through the stomach by the sharp tentacle of an Eldritch abomination. She covers her face with her hands just before Steele is dragged into the gaping maw of the monster.

After a few seconds, she peeks through the gaps between her fingers. Three of the feeds have burst into action. Lilith's feed on the bottom right monitor hasn't moved. She's just staring at the one-eyed extra-dimensional monstrosity before her.

"Angel. Guide them," a stern voice says from behind her.

Angel clears her throat. "Right, sorry, sir." She types in a few commands on her keyboard and picks up the piece of paper beside her cup of tea. Her eyes scan her father's neat handwriting. He writes in all-caps. It's always bugged her. She thinks it's just another way he tries to exude authority.

"Don't give up!" she says into the microphone. "This creature may be immortal in its own realm, but in this reality it cannot survive without a host, and that makes it vulnerable. When it becomes flesh and blood, it can be hurt; even killed. You just need to know where to aim."

She switches off her microphone, and Jack's hand comes into the side of her field of vision, pointing at the bottom left monitor.

"Whose feed is that?"

"The Siren's."

"What the hell's her problem? She's just standing there! Hey, idiot, move!"

Angel rolls her eyes. "I'll handle it," she tells him.

"You'd better. We need them to succeed here, Angel. Be her cheerleader, do whatever it takes."

Angel rolls her head from side to side and arches her back. She sighs in relief as a few vertebrae crack.

"This is clearly gonna take those chumps a while," he says. "Come get me when they're done."

She breathes a sigh of relief as her father leaves the room. Now she can work.

She types in a few commands and switches her microphone back on. "Lilith? You need to move."

The feed on her lower right monitor slowly pans to the right. After a moment, Lilith finally starts to move, ducking behind a large pillar just as a large tentacle slaps the ground where she stood moments earlier.

* * *

"I have a confession to make."

"Go ahead."

Lilith frowns as she sees the projection of Angel's face do the same. As far as she can remember, it's the first time she's seen the young woman's face do anything but smile reassuringly.

"I... I may be somewhat responsible for Helga's death."

"Who?"

"Steele."

Lilith lets out a small chuckle. "Um, I'm pretty sure you weren't the one who stabbed her through the gut with a giant tentacle."

"No, of course not, I mean that... well, I tried to warn her about what would happen if she was there when the Vault was opened, but she didn't believe me."

"Okay, so she didn't listen to you... still not seeing how this is your fault."

"You still don't understand, do you? I'm the one that guided you to the Vault, and she was trying to get there first. So in a way, I led her to the Vault."

Lilith frowns. "Wait... you warned her about what would happen?"

"...yes."

"Meaning you knew she would be killed by that weird tentacle monster."

"...yes."

"..."

"Lilith?"

"You knew."

"Well, yes, I-"

"You knew this _whole time_ that she was going to die."

"Lilith, I promise you I-"

"No!" Lilith interrupts. Promises from a computer. Could anything be more meaningless? "You knew this whole time she was going to die, and you let me believe that I'd actually get to meet her? To join up with her? To finally find some answers about being a Siren, to finally have somebody like myself to talk to? Someone who can actually understand me?"

"I under-"

"NO, you don't! How could you _possibly_ understand how _alone_ I feel all the time?"

"Lilith, _please_ listen-"

"I'm done listening to you. You spent all this time building up my hopes just so you could smash them to pieces."

"You don't understand-"

"I don't ever want to hear from you again."

* * *

Angel stares blankly as the feed on her bottom right monitor cuts to black. Lilith has turned off her ECHO device.

Angel bows her head and fights back tears. Lilith hadn't once objected when she called her _friend_. At first she just said it because it was what her father would have wanted.

"_Be nice to them. Be congenial, Angel. You need to be their friend._"

But over time, that expression of congeniality became real. With all of them, in some respect, but especially so with Lilith. It kills Angel that she couldn't tell her what she was, what they had in common, but she knew now couldn't be the time for that. Or was that just another one of her father's lies that she had come to believe over the past few years? Just another thing he would tell her to further his own aspirations?

Was she even a friend to Lilith? She hopes she was. She wanted to be. She tried to be her friend. But friends are honest with each other. Friends don't hold secrets from one another. Friends don't manipulate friends because somebody told them to. Angel tries to ignore the growing pang of guilt in the pit of her stomach.

One night a while ago while they slept, and while she was bored, Angel compiled a simple code that would keep track of how long she was tapped into each of the Vault Hunter's audio feeds. After a week of watching them, it confirmed her suspicions: of all the time she was listening to one of the four of them, almost half of it was spent with Lilith, watching her video feed, listening to her as she interacted with the others, or with other civilians. Though when they were in combat, Angel would usually switch her audio feed off: she found keeping it muted and watching their progress was easier to deal with than listening and not watching.

Almost half the time, she spent with Lilith, as if she were a little angelic figure resting on the woman's shoulder, silent and unseen, but always watching, and sometimes even guiding, even when they didn't know it.

It was only natural. Lilith was the first Siren whom Angel had ever met. Steele, well... Angel was sad that Steele died, too, but Steele had never fully trusted her to begin with. Lilith felt perfectly at ease talking with her late into the night. And Angel, she loved the company. She loved having someone who seemed to understand how she felt, even though she could never tell Lilith just how alike they were. She loved having someone to listen to, someone to talk about things with other than her father's asinine quest for power.

She had hoped that over time they could form a connection. She knew they may never meet in person, but even that would have been enough. Two ships passing in the night, neither alone, both aware of each other, but neither knowing just how close the other is.

A few times, she had even deluded herself into thinking that maybe one day she could tell Lilith that she is a Siren too. Now she might not be able to tell her anything anymore.

Angel is possessed of a sight that allows her to look forward and backward across the timeline, but even that gift didn't prepare her for how devastated she feels now.

For the first time in months, Angel switches off the computer her father has her hooked up to.

She lies face down on her bed and sobs.


	2. Watching Angels Fall from the Sky

A few hundred meters outside of Sanctuary stands Memorial Park, a monument to the lives lost to Hyperion. Many smaller graves populate the site, but three larger statues catch the eye even from afar.

Bloodwing's statue, atop a tall pedestal, the bird's bronzed wings spread out to the side majestically.

Roland's memorial, his hands placed on his hips, his stoic face scanning the horizon, eternally vigilant.

And the third: a graceful Eridian-marble statue of Angel.

The construction of Angel's memorial wasn't without controversy among Sanctuary's citizens. It was Lilith and Maya that demanded she be included. Mordecai insisted that they never would have demanded it if she wasn't a Siren, like them. Maya denied it, of course. Lilith admitted he may have been right, but that what-ifs shouldn't matter in the face of what did happen. Because the fact of the matter, after all, was that none of them may still be alive if not for Angel's sacrifice, and they all know it.

Lilith firmly believes that the second they forget why they're still here will be the second they lose themselves.

* * *

Mordecai takes a swig of his black lager as he stares blankly at Angel's memorial. One marble hand is clasped to her chest, with the other arm extended forward, hand open, fingers slightly curled, palm to the sky. Her wings stretch out a good 8 feet to either side of her.

"Y'know, chica, between you 'n me, you wouldn't even have a statue here if it were my choice."

He waits a moment, almost as if he expects to see her face pop up on his ECHO display and respond to him.

"When you were alive, Jack tricked us into opening the first Vault. Then he raided New Haven with Wilhelm and almost killed all of us. Forced Lilith into hiding. Then he killed all those Vault Hunters he invited here to look for the Vault. Then he killed Pierce in cold blood. Then he tricked our friends into killing Wilhelm, then killed who _knows_ how many people when we used that power core. Then he made me watch as he killed Bloodwing. Then he lured the rest up to the Bunker and killed Roland and captured Lilith. All of that happened with you around. And I'm counting that last bit because you were still alive when they got there.

"Once you were gone, all he did was use Lilith to charge the Key, stab her a few times, and throw childish taunts at my friends, and tell them to kill themselves.

"So it seems pretty obvious to me that you were always the brains behind this whole thing. That he was just the muscle, the guy with connections, the guy who could carry out your plans.

"Lookin' at it like that, it seems like we'd have been a lot better off if you killed yourself a long time ago."

He pauses again, as if waiting for another response from Angel, almost as if he were imagining what she might say back to him were she still alive.

"You really expect me to believe you had no other chances to end it? How many years did he spend pumping that purple shit into you, anyway? Did it start right after we opened the first Vault? How could it have taken you five years to come up with this plan? You couldn't just phase-shift or whatever the hell into the eridium pumps and shut 'em down for a few minutes?

He shakes his head and starts slowly pacing back and forth.

"I just don't get it, kid. All the work you put into these last five years, movin' us around like pawns on your giant chessboard, manipulating us _and_ your dad, and this is the best you could do? Leave us with Roland and Bloodwing dead? Did you even know if our friends could stop the Warrior if Jack got control of it?

"...did you even know Jack would wake up the Warrior in the first place?"

Before Mordecai can dwell any further, a brown and white bird of prey lands on his shoulder, a skag tongue hanging out of its beak.

Mordecai finishes his beer and sets it down on the pedestal of Angel's statue.

"I dunno, Angel. I just think it's sad. Considering what a puppet master you were for so long, I just feel like there must have been a way you could have avoided this..."

Bloodtalon finishes his skag tongue and lets out a squawk.

"Yeah, c'mon boy. Let's get home."

* * *

Brick doesn't have to turn his head up much to look at the face on Angel's statue.

"Sometimes I still have trouble believing you were an actual person, Angel," he admits in his typical booming delivery. "But if Lilith and the rest swear you were, I believe 'em.

"I know a few things about shitty fathers, but nowhere near what Jack put you through. I just wish I got a chance to rearrange that ugly face of his with my fists before the asshole died.

"I thought he was bad when he had Dusty killed. I thought he was evil when he killed Bloodwing.

"But if that sonofabitch put his own daughter through hell like that, I can't even think of a word bad enough for him.

"And it pisses me off, because I know HE'LL be the one history remembers. Not you. Sure as hell not us. Just that arrogant coward.

"You didn't deserve to go like that."

Brick takes a small, round, golden object out of his pocket, and turns it over in his massive fingers. The chain attached to it hangs down over his hand, dangling down and swaying back and forth. He steps forward and places the pocketwatch next to an empty beer bottle.

"I ripped this thing off Jack before we left," he explains, arranging the chain into a small pile. "Maybe it'll help you rest easier knowin' that we did stop him in the end."

He looks at the face on Angel's statue, then cracks his neck.

"And if that doesn't help... Lilith did say that he died crying like a baby."

* * *

"I hate you."

Tina stands with her arms folded over her chest, her back to Angel's statue.

"Lily says I shouldn't... because Jack was the one who made you do what you did but... I ain't never gonna forgive you for what you did to Roland."

* * *

Axton rubs his chin, rough from a few days without shaving.

"I wish I could say you were the first kid I've seen die, but... that would be a lie," he says, after a beat.

"Back on Demophon, we, uh... well, my squad was tasked with collecting intel on a local militia leader, Overholt. He was terrorizing the citizens of the planet, and we almost caught him on an earlier mission but uh... well, I might have made a decision that gave him a chance to get away. What's important is that this guy was on the run, and we were tracking him down.

"We tracked him down to a run-down city outside of a major population center. Dahl wanted him alive, but we were given orders to kill anybody else that stood in our way. We tracked him with our thermals, to this isolated room with only one doorway. He was in there with about four other soldiers... he knew he was cornered, so he was going to take out as many of us as he could.

"So we just blew a few holes in the walls and flanked 'em. Didn't suffer a single casualty, secured the target... mission success."

He sighs. "That's when I saw him. Just a kid, couldn't have been more than 13. Overholt, he was notorious for using young soldiers, but this...

"I don't know if I was the one that killed him, of course, in all the chaos and crossfire, but... I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if it really matters which one of us did it.

"I try not to think about it, but... that look in your eyes when you were going... it just brought that kid right back to my memory. That scared, confused look... the look of somebody in way over their head, with no way to get out and nobody willing to help them."

He shakes his head. "Sometimes it's tough to fall asleep at night, knowing what we did back there. But I never once let myself forget... that Overholt was the one responsible for that kid being there. Just like Jack was responsible for the position you were in."

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the two shell casings of the rounds he used to shoot Jack in the head. He studies them as he rolls them over in his fingers, then places them upright beside an empty beer bottle.

"Little as I'm sure it means now to you... I hope that the others remember that."

* * *

"I didn't know you all that long," Gaige says, staring down at her shoes. "Or that well... though, I gotta admit, it didn't actually surprise me that much when you turned out to be a real person...

"A _Siren_, well, okay: I didn't see _that_ one coming, but... I guess I was always suspicious that you couldn't be a computer. You just seemed so... _natural_. _Too_ natural, in fact.

"And I know computers, and you just... you always seemed too advanced. Too real. Too _perfect_.

She lets out a small giggle. "Remember... remember the time when we were outside the Wildlife Preserve, and we were trying to get in... and Mordecai kept telling us, 'just keep wounding the bots and they'll send out surveyors', and whenever one of us would get one of them wounded, Krieg or Salvador would just run over and destroy them?"

Gaige laughs a little louder and continues. "And Mordecai just kept goin', 'hey, hey, try _not_ to kill 'em!', but Sal and Krieg didn't listen and they just kept destroying wave after wave of loaders... and we kept screaming at them, 'hey, idiots, _don't kill them!_'

"And then eventually you just came in over the ECHO and you said, 'okay, this is painful to watch, let me handle the door,' and I was just like, 'freaking _thank_ you!'"

Gaige laughs to herself and glances up at Angel's statue. "I miss that... Just something as dumb and trivial as you doing that for us... I dunno. Maybe it's because it was another sign you were always watching out for us... back home I had my dad to do that, and then I had you here... and now...

"You knew me. You saw me when I was alone in my room at night. Everybody else knows the Mechromancer. They know Gaige the Engineer, and Gaige the Anarchist, and Gaige the Science Geek... but you saw Gaige the Hopeless Romantic, and Gaige the Fish-out-of-Water, and Gaige the Kinda-Almost-Normal-Teenage-Girl...

"And I friggin' hated you for it!" she adds with a laugh. "At least at first I did, anyway, but... you grew on me. I kinda got used to never being alone when I was alone. I could share stuff with you that I'd _never_ share with any of the others... that I still probably never will, either.

"But now you're gone, and I just have to pretend it's all okay and remind myself that you're not there to listen to me talk about stuff at night...

"It's not the same without you, Angel."

She looks up at Angel's statue with slumped shoulders and lets out a sigh.

"Oh, right, I made something... kind of in memory of you, I guess."

Gaige reaches into her bag and pulls out a small figurine she made of spare parts and scrap metal. "This is you," she says, looking at the small figure in her hands. "See, I used a wing-nut for your wings... heh. I even got a bunch of blue wire for your tattoos... I dunno, it's just a stupid little thing I made because... because I miss talking to you. Hell, I miss _you_.

She sets the small figure on the marble pedestal, beside a gold pocketwatch, and rubs the back of her neck as she lets out a sigh.

"God, I suck at goodbyes."

* * *

"Gossamer feathers,  
Breathtakingly beautiful,  
Tragically fragile.

Gentle butterfly  
The final flap of your wings  
Still keeps our sails full."

* * *

Moxxi holds her top hat in front of her chest, running her hands over its brim. The statue of Angel smiles down at her forgivingly.

"He never mentioned having a daughter, Angel."

The statue of Angel smiles down at Moxxi forgivingly.

"Every memory I have of him laying his hands on me disgusts me, because of what he did to you. You have to know that I never would have become involved with him if I knew about you. If I knew what that bastard did to his poor little girl.

"Maya told me about some ECHO recordings she found about you when you were young. When Jack first started... experimenting on you, I guess... She- hah-... Maya didn't believe me when I told her I never knew about you. I guess I can't blame her. But Jack really didn't ever mention you, Angel, I swear.

"Anyway, the ECHOs... they mention your mother... they don't say what happened to her, but... they do mention that she knew Hyperion was using you... experimenting on you... whatever it was they were doing.

"I may have made a lot of mistakes in my life, but my children are _not_ one of them. A mother is supposed to protect her daughter, not hand her over to scientists so they can... stick wires into her brain and pump her body with electricity and poison...

"What your parents gave to you, Angel... that wasn't love... no loving parent would ever do what yours did.

"I just wish I could've rescued you from that ugly bastard of a father... I've got a lot of flaws, but I am a damn good mother. And I just feel like if you had a good mother, all of this could have been avoided..."

Moxxi sighs and pulls a ring off her pinky finger, and sets it down between Angel's feet, beside a bundle of cherry blossoms that had been recently placed there.

"He never told me, honey... I promise you..."

Angel smiles down at Moxxi forgivingly.

* * *

"I didn't mean to treat you like that..."

Lilith looks up as she sits in front of Angel's statue, her knees drawn towards her chest and her boots flat against the dirt.

"But I did. And I can't ever take that back.

"I don't know how you hid the fact that you're a Siren from me for so long.

"I remember five years ago, after we killed Baron Flynt... I remember walking through that cave to get to the Lance outpost to save Tannis, and as we were getting closer... I distinctly remember getting this weird sensation all through the left side of my body, and I remember my tattoos started glowing this weird... almost white color...

"And we walked into that shipping container, and it lifted from over our heads, and then I saw her standing there up in that little room...

"I could sense there was a Siren near before I even knew Steele was one. And I remember getting that same feeling as we went through the Promontory, as we got closer and closer to her, before... well, before she got shish-kebab'ed.

"And then I got that feeling again in Frostburn Canyon, when the Vault Hunters were looking for me... I could sense Maya's presence as she got closer. I could _feel _her essence as a Siren.

"So why is it that I never got that sensation from you?

"How is it that you managed to hide it from me so well?

"Is it because we never met in person until just before you died? I guess Steele ECHOed us a few times and I couldn't tell then, but... I could _see_ you. I couldn't see her. I should've been able to tell..."

Lilith grinds the heels of her boots into the dust beneath them and sighs.

"You told me once... that you're... that you _were_ able to look forward and backward across the timeline. You said that... the release of the Destroyer was inevitable.

"Was this all inevitable too? Or did I fuck up when I didn't listen to you and came to the Control Core anyway?"

She sighs and tosses a rock past Angel's statue.

"I guess it didn't make any difference... Jack probably would've killed Roland anyway. And then he just would've taken Maya instead of me. And maybe he wouldn't have been able to release the Warrior in time because of it, but... I guess nothing would really be different now... would it? He'd still be gone. Roland would still be gone. You would still be gone... wouldn't you?

"What is it that you saw, anyway?

"What futures did you see being written out? What horrible things could you have seen happening that you decided your best hope, that _our_ best hope was you committing suicide-by-Vault-Hunter?

"Could I have helped? Would you have told me if I never stopped talking to you?

"...or was that inevitable, too? How long did it take you to die, anyway, after we destroyed the last eridium injector? Half a minute? Less?

Lilith runs her hands down over her face and shakes her head.

"I guess I just don't understand why you couldn't find a way to kill Jack without having us kill you, too. Jack was the one making your life hell, not the eridium. And I know there isn't much of a distinction since Jack's the one that got you on eridium in the first place, but...

"I just wish it could have unfolded some other way..."

Lilith slowly pushes herself to her feet. Careful to avoid the various tributes the others had left her, she steps up onto the pedestal and places a chunk of eridium into Angel's upturned marble palm.

"Once I saw what this stuff did to you," she says after hopping back to the ground, "I knew I had to quit... and then of course Jack captures me and pumps even more of the stuff into me," she adds with an awkward laugh.

"Anyway... I'm trying to get off the stuff... it's not easy, I mean, it's not like there's eridium clinics I can check into, but... I figure I owe you that much. I owe _myself_ that much.

"I've been..." Lilith clears her throat and continues. "I've been thinking of that conversation we had... back after we opened the first Vault... and I just...

"I wish I got the chance to apologize to you for what I said to you... I just... I thought you were a computer, you know? I didn't think that... I didn't think that there was an actual person behind your voice that I might hurt... ugh, there's so much about that I regret...

"I was upset. I was mad at Steele and I held it against you. I'm sorry.

"It just pisses me off that he kept you caged up, and that I was too damn stubborn to let you share your pain with me..."

She stares at the ground and stuffs her hands in her pockets as she toes the dirt with her boot.

"I wish you didn't have to die thinking that I hated you.

"But I made my mistakes. And if I have to live with them..."

She holds her hands out to either side, palms up, before letting them fall back down uselessly to her sides.

_So be it._

* * *

She studies the eyes on Angel's statue wordlessly, her arms crossed over her chest, the wind blowing strands of her silvery-blue hair in front of her eyes.

The last of the sunlight reflected from the moon is fading. The night cycle is nearly upon the far side of Pandora.

Hundreds of yards off in the distance, a rakk hive slowly burrows itself into the ground.

Dust kicks around her feet. The southern winds are dying down. A few trash feeders fly overhead, heading north.

She spends exactly eleven minutes staring at Angel's statue in reflective silence.

Her jaw clenches. She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath before letting it out unsteadily.

Her eyes open again after a moment. She brushes a strand of windswept hair out of her face.

She looks up at Angel's statue again for a few seconds before slowly turning and walking away, eyes scanning the ground, hands in pockets.

Maya tries to ignore the curious feeling that Angel's statue is watching her walk away.


	3. Taking Flight on Paper Wings

Lilith stares at Maya, her eyebrows tilted downwards, the left corner of her lip curled up slightly.

"Say again?" the redhead requests as she tilts her head to the left.

"I'm leaving."

"Leaving. Like, leaving the Crimson Raiders?" Lilith asks, despite already knowing the answer.

"Leaving this planet. For good."

Lilith purses her lips together for a few seconds, then shakes her head. "No."

"_Yes_," Maya says forcefully.

"Okay, uhm... _why_?"

Maya lets out a mixture of a laugh and a scoff. "_Why_? Did you _seriously_ just ask that?"

Lilith stares blankly back at her.

"You told me what this planet did to Steele. We _both_ saw what it did to Angel-"

"What _Jack_ did to Steele, and what _Jack_ did to Angel," Lilith corrects her.

"And what do you think made Jack the way he was? This _damned planet. _And I'm not going to wait around long enough for it to get its claws into me, too."

"So that's it, then? Things get too hard for you to deal with, so you run away. Is that what the Order taught you?"

"That's not what this is about, and you know it. This planet destroys us, Lilith. It pulls us in, and then it gets under our skin, and it destroys us from the inside. It's a _cancer_."

"Steele and Angel died because Jack was a sociopath, and a hypocrite, and because he was willing to manipulate the people he loved and to destroy anybody who got in between him and his fucked up dream for a perfect world. Trust me, Maya, I've kept myself up long enough at night thinking over everything I could have done differently, and it always comes down to that."

"Why didn't you leave?"

Caught off-guard by the question, Lilith looks up at Maya curiously.

"I mean, after Steele. Why did you stay here?"

Lilith's gaze slowly drifts off into the distance. "I... I guess I-"

"You don't know why, do you?"

"Of course I do! Brick and Mordy and Roland were my friends, even back then. I couldn't just leave, after all that we went through."

"You all could've gone somewhere else. But you stayed here. _Why?_"

Lilith frowns. She isn't sure she likes the direction these questions are headed. "I mean, we... we had to take care of Atlas, and then the Claptraps, and... and by then, Hyperion was building up their presence, and..."

She runs her hand through her hair as she stumbles for a solid answer. Why _had_ they stayed? Before New Haven was destroyed, she remembers conversations about other planets, leaving to find other frontiers, but now those conversations don't seem like they were serious. Were they ever serious about it? Did any one of them ever truly believe they would go to a planet like Aphonia or Eden-6 or Galventus?

"I... Roland?" Lilith finally settles on an answer, but even she isn't sure she believes it as she hears the word come out of her mouth.

"Hmm. Maybe," Maya says, glancing out the window.

"What's that supposed to mean? You don't believe me?"

"I've heard enough ECHO recordings to know that eridium only started becoming abundant on this planet after you four opened the first Vault."

Lilith's expression deadens. "You did _not_ just bring that up."

"I'm just saying, maybe this planet had more to do with you staying here than you'd care to admit... it would make sense."

Lilith's hands ball into fists as she stands up and shouts at Maya. "You know _damn_ well how hard this has been for me!"

"I didn't-"

"You do _not_ get to stand there feeling superior and blame all of this on _me_!" Lilith growls. Her tattoos begin to glow: in her palm, a ball of fire materializes, engulfing her left hand in flame.

Maya's shoulders tense up and electricity begins arcing between her fingertips. "Try it: It'll be the biggest mistake of your life."

No, it wouldn't, Lilith thinks. She made that six years ago, back on Dionysus.

So, what more does she have to lose?

Lilith rears her arm back. Before she can even launch her fireball, she's trapped inside a pink bubble, hovering a few feet above the floor. It's exactly how she figured it would happen. She struggles anyway, only causing Maya to shrink the bubble and constrict her movement even more.

"Put me down!"

"I wasn't _blaming_ you for anything," Maya explains with a flat voice. "And yes, I know how hard you've been working to get off the eridium. I don't know what it's like, but I've seen what it's been doing to you. But if you think that shit has nothing to do with you staying here, _you are deluding yourself_."

"What does it even _matter_ why I stayed here?"

Maya sighs and slowly sets Lilith down on the foot of the bed, releasing her from her Phaselock. "Because... I was hoping you would come with me."

Lilith looks up at her, but doesn't respond.

"It's not too late for you, you know. You can come with me. You can leave this place and all your mistakes behind. You can start over. I want to help you, Lilith, but you have to let me first."

Lilith's stomach churns. She had known for a while that Maya wasn't going to stay long on this planet, and she had considered leaving with her already. Which means she had already thought about the ramifications of leaving. "And what, leave the Raiders without a leader?"

"A leader for what? Jack's dead, Hyperion's all but pulled out-"

"Somebody will take their place. And then who would stand up when they make a grab for power? Brick's too sadistic and reckless. Mordecai's a drunk-"

Maya clears her throat and casts a judgmental eye at the various empty alcohol bottles on Lilith's dresser. Lilith rolls her eyes, but otherwise ignores her.

"Axton's too careless," she starts, standing up to pace back and forth across the room. "Zero's gone half the time, and he's probably gonna leave soon anyway. Sal, well, where do I _begin_ with him? Gaige is just a kid, we can't expect her to be able to make those kinds of decisions, and Krieg, well... do I even need to say anything about him? Face it, I'm the only one who can fill that role. Well, aside from you, but..."

"You don't owe it to these people to stay," Maya says, bringing her hands together. "There's nothing more you can do here. And besides, they can get along without you. Mordecai and Brick managed things just fine while Jack had you, uh... yeah."

"Why do you want to leave so badly?"

Maya's lips part slightly. She looks caught off-guard by Lilith's question. "I told you... I don't want to wait around while this planet swallows me whole."

Lilith leans back against the wall and glances over at Maya. "You ever consider that it's not this planet?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You said this planet's a cancer. What if it's not Pandora that's the problem? What if it's us?"

"Us, as in, the Raiders?" Maya asks, in a tone that suggests she already knows that's not what Lilith's talking about.

"Sirens. We get stuck with these damn powers, and this damn eridium, and these damn Vaults that are somehow littered _all over the galaxy_... what makes you think you'll be better off leaving?"

The blue-haired Siren shakes her head. "It can't get much worse, can it?"

"Why are you so convinced Pandora is the problem? Why do you insist on hanging onto the thought that there has to be an enemy at the root of all of your problems, but you never take a moment to reflect on what's in the mirror looking back at you?"

Maya stares back at Lilith in silence, her mouth hanging just slightly open.

"Or are you just afraid that you'll turn into me?"

"Lilith, don't..."

"I'd understand if that was it. I sure as hell wouldn't want any of this if I were you. I'm just trying to understand why you would travel all this way just to find me, and then leave once you do."

Maya shakes her head. "I just don't see what else is left for me here. I came looking for answers about Sirens, and I didn't find anything. Not from you, not from Tannis, not from the stupid Vault..."

The redhead lets out a small snort. "Funny thing about answers... They don't mean anything if you don't know what question to ask."

Maya slowly nods. "Yeah... maybe you're right..."

Lilith sighs and sits on the foot of the bed. Maya leans back against the wall, lifting her leg and resting the sole of her left shoe flat against it.

"Have you told the others yet?" the redhead asks, after a long silence.

Maya shakes her head. "You're the first. I thought..."

"You thought if you could convince me, we could just tell the rest together."

She scratches the back of her head and sighs. "Yeah, something like that."

Lilith nods and looks down at Maya's shoes. "Poor Gaige is gonna be broken up about this, you know. I think she still treats us like her new family."

Maya sighs. "I know... I'm actually dreading telling her more than you, to be honest."

"Where will you go?" Lilith asks timidly.

Maya shrugs. "Haven't decided yet, really. Maybe I'll visit Athenas first and decide from there. Unless of course... you changed your mind about staying and had something in mind..."

The redhead laughs softly, but shakes her head.

"Well... the shuttle gets here tomorrow at noon... just think about it, okay? Will you do that for me?"

Lilith looks up into Maya's silver eyes and offers her a small smile. "Sure. I'll think about it."

Maya makes eye contact with her and nods, but doesn't smile back. Lilith suddenly finds herself thinking back to Memorial Park, and wonders what future Angel might have seen being written out for Maya.

"Maybe we're not meant to find each other," the redhead says, after a long, thoughtful silence. "Sirens, I mean," she adds, upon seeing Maya quirk a curious eyebrow.

"What makes you say that?"

"Just thinking, I guess. About the other two... About something Angel told me once, about how she could see the future before it happened."

"Yeah?"

Lilith nods.

"You really think she could?"

She furrows her brow. "You don't?"

"I don't know what to think. Maybe she could. Maybe it was just something Jack had her tell you to make her seem more mysterious."

"Yeah... maybe..." Lilith sighs.

Maya rubs the back of her neck. "I, um-"

"No, yeah, sure-"

"-should really go tell... the others..."

"Of course," Lilith says, shaking her head and standing up.

The two Sirens walk out of Lilith's bedroom. Maya lingers as she lays her hand on Lilith's apartment door and pushes it open. She stands still in the doorway for a moment before turning around to face the redhead.

"So, um," Lilith starts. "This is... probably it, then..."

"Made up your mind already?"

"No, I'll still think about it, I just-"

"It's alright, Lilith... I didn't really think you'd change your mind, anyway. I know you too well for that."

Lilith's mouth curls into half a smile. "I hope you find something out there worth staying for."

"Thank you..." Maya mumbles, glancing down at her shoes.

Lilith steps forward and wraps her arms around Maya, pulling her into a hug. After a couple seconds, she feels Maya's arms around her, hugging her back.

The two Sirens slowly pull apart. Maya clears her throat and speaks first. "I, um... I'm gonna miss you, Lil."

"Me too," Lilith mumbles, turning her gaze from her boots up to Maya, who is smiling back at her.

"Maybe I'll meet you again somewhere out there, some night..." she says, a tear escaping one of her silver eyes.

"Yeah... I'd like that."

Maya sighs and gives Lilith another hug before saying goodbye. The Order lied to her about a lot of things, but there's plenty that she learned from them, too.

She knows that she can't save Lilith if Lilith won't accept her help.

Lilith says goodbye to her, and she slowly turns and starts walking away. Lilith blinks a few times as she watches her move down the hallway.

Maya lingers as she reaches the corner of the hall. She puts her left hand on the wall and glances over her shoulder, but Lilith isn't standing there anymore, and the door to her apartment is closed.


End file.
